That’s really relatable Jasmine! I’m recently spending way more time on my Acoustic guitar than on my Classical guitar, so usually after Dee is usually getting soon back to chores and everyday life commitments. When I know I have only 5, 10 or 15 minutes I start thinking how I will practice in advance, often while walking back from work so that when I sit down with my guitar I know what I will focus on.
It’s not possible to set a strict practice routine, Dee is above my level, and while I’m exploring it I’m also exploring the way I need to practice it; I try to keep in mind all the good principles for effective practice that I learnt from Justin and try to apply them while observing myself going. This Diary is helping hugely!
I did well! I did a whole 5 minutes with the metronome repeating bar 22 landing on the open D, holding it for 3 beats and restarting again the sequence over and over. Wow!
Then I did 5 minutes on the pesky chord change and the notes rang clearly.
And 5 minutes playing it all, trying to incorporate bar 22…but I succeded only once well…you know what?
warm up: 10min melody by ear…is a chord melody developing? I need to be careful not to get “trapped” in chord melodies…but if it’ll develop I have no other chance than following it
short break
bar 22 with metronome 55bpm: not to bad
Bars 1 - 22 with metronome 5min × 3times: the metronome did help to incorporate bar 21! I didn’t bother too much if innacuracies happened, only a few notes to be honest, I just went along with the click and tapping my foot…
…it made me feel well. I didn’t mean to practice today but I had such an awful nightmare last night which made me woke up in tears and anguished that all I was longing for was the reassuring click of the metronome to bring me back to myself.
They had selected and ‘duplicated’ me to live in a higher intelligent dimension, while my human being would keep on living, getting old and die in this world, they said I had the chance to live forever and told me it was strictly forbiden to get in touch with my former human self in the real world…it was awful…now who knows if there’s not really another me who has been created in another dimension and who suffers because she can’t get in touch with herself? I need to practice some more now.
I warmed up for 10 minutes with my Melody of the moment and waltzed a little bit with Carulli.
I’m setting a 30 minutes timer now and I will practice Dee with a 55bpm metronome , at each run through I’ll stop the metronome to write down what went wrong (I made this plan while changing the bed sheet this morning, let’s see if I can be an objective observer of myself).
Ugh…ok, first take I need to better focus on the click, that was quite predictable
Memory failed on the bars following B7 and I had to stop the metronome to slowly re-finding them under my fingers
I felt I wasn’t playing right on the click, but it felt reasonably better, I felt I would be more confident with a silent 123 counting, so I’m adding it now
Ah…yes…now it’s better! Unclean notes on the pesky chord change and not so good sounding hammer-ons (I had noticed this before, not a priority at the moment though)
Ok, same issues as before…but hey I’m incorporating bar 22 reasonably well!
I lost control after the B7 again! I did some slow repetitions on this passage without the click
Ok, quite “good”, the strings buzzed a little on bar 22 but I was in time
The timer rang right at the few last bar but I kept going to the open D - once more bar 22 was well incorporated.
Some reflection is needed on what I’ve written above, but later on…
A few things to keep in mind (based on today’s practice):
• practice the first run through without the metronome, slowly with the silent 123counting and with the foot tapping
• be focused on the timing - most likely I lose control not because I don’t remember where my fingers go but because I’m not ready to put them down exactly when they need to; I think building a rhytmically correct muscles memory is what I need - the right time will come to rely on my musical imagination instead of the beat
• keep on practicing with the metronome as well
• less is more: LESS RUN-THROUGHS, MORE FOCUS!
I already had learnt a few bars after bar 22, and they are challenging as much, I’m moving on to work on bar 23 on its own, while revisiting 1-22 as well.
That section 21 through 27 looks tough but Amazing.
Wow, you are 2/3 of the way finished learning this piece, but as you said there is a lot more to it as you have described once memorized.
It is a big step and It will be a good feeling once you get all the part in the grey matter. Thanks for keeping up with you posting. It has been helpful.
I extended my work on Dee yesterday to the 3 step walk down. I think bar 11 maybe?
It certainly won’t be a smooth as yours. But your continued posting and steady work is inspiring.
Please feel free to post here if you have notes/ observations of your practice…or a short video to keep track of your progress.
Yes, it’s bar 11…good news 12 and 13 are quite easy as well…from bar 14 on it gets a bit trickier but nothing too difficult if you go slow and break it down.
This is not something I would give for granted as this is really challenging, but I do love the slow learning and I’ll get to the last bar somehow
bars 1-22 without the metronome, tapping and counting : 5 min
bar 1-22 with the metronome 55/60 bpm: 5 min (feels like raising the bpm is a good idea, since I practice it faster than 55 without the metronome)
bar 1-22 with the metronome 65bpm: 10min (I was feeling focused and doing quite nicely and I did 10 mins instead of 5 )
bar 1-22 no metronome, no counting, no tapping: 5min (not bad, though bar 22 gets more innacurate without the timing clear reference)
All in all at 65bpm I am as much innacurate as at 55bpm, not more actually …but it seems to flow a bit better. It’ll be worth to practice bar 22 at 65bpm on its own next time, to build more confidence.
Bar 22 was planned for today, but it’ll be tomorrow
I know I need to really work on each bar more and slow down but I kind of like getting through once and while I am doing that I am going through slowly bar by bar. Super high action also. Just below 5 mm. my hand hurts every time I play this thing. Its worth it, classicals sound so nice.
You don’t need much advice from me, you already know how to improve. I think consistency would be really worth, because it’s really a challenging one. Ah those pesky chords! Sometimes I feel like getting clean notes it’s like winning at the lottery! But I think if we practice slow correctly then we’ll get there!
Now…it would be nice also to have some notes from you about one or two tricky bars and how you might try to adjust to improve them
You have already a good starting point there Jason…keep going!
I got mixed up and from a certain point on I started writing about bar 21 when it was actually bar 22…
BAR 22 IS THE FASTY TRICKY ONE! I edited the posts above and made the due corrections.
warm up: 5min
from the harmonics to bar 22 no metronome but counting and tapping: 5min
from the harmonics to bar 22 metronome at 65bpm counting and tapping: 5min
short break
pesky chord change (bars 3 to 4): 5 min
up to bar 22 without the metronome: 5min
up to bar 22 with the metronome 65bpm: 5min (4 run-throughs stopping the metronome in between for a very short break)
bar 23 free exploring starting from the lesson: 10min…I added bar 24 as well (I had already put some work up to bar 26) and I could already soon practice with a metronome at 60bpm …it’ll be worth to practice the hammer-on+flick-off to the next bar on its own, to reinforce it, it’s not too bad but I feel I can actually refine this one a little bit.
Way more than enough for today…there won’t be time for my Acoustic Guitar now…tomorrow I’ll focus more on strumming and spare only 15 minutes for Dee.
Thanks, you are so kind and nice to an old punk and novice player like me.
Difficulty.
I have a real hard time keeping my Ring finger clawed enough not to touch the G string when holding down the D string in the “bar’ish” chords. When I do move my finger into the correct position the bottom of my palm touches the high pitched e string muting that.
Possable solution.
Guitar positioning and arm position might help this. Also working on bringing the action down on this guitar will help a bit. But its mostly my fault. More pratice will help for sure.
I can’t do the rolls very well. I reviewed justins lesson from way back talking about them already, he also spoke about it in the dee lesson. Why is such an easyhing so difficult?
I think its just another item to put on my daily pratice for a couple of mins. Maybe just make a couple of chord progressions and harmonic sets and do 2 mins of finger rolls. Double dose of practicing them. In the song and during my dailys.
I am always open for suggestions and constructive criticism of course. I get into this thing with videos. I don’t want to post until its fluent, but then once I get proficient, I move on and forget to film it.
I have been bad about filming myself with this guitar journey, Haha I just found the 3rd issue, I will work on being better.
I had exactly the same struggle. I fixed it by slightly turning the wrist toward the body of the guitar and keeping ring finger well curled on the frets. It took some practice.
It seems they are easy but they are not. It took me a few months when I lerned this technique, a few years ago. Rolling chords sound so sweet…all the time required is absolutely worth it!
A shorter timer is usually useful, thanks for reminding me!
In this life or in the next one Doesn’t really matter…Dee is forever
Observations: bla bla bla bla - I need a break, I’m tired. Maybe I’m asking too much to myself with all these so many hammer-ons and flick-offs …I think I can be a bit humblier and not aim to make them sound perfect at this point of my journey, as they’re not the only challenge in the piece.
Quoting myself in answering Jason about Rolling Chords
I would be a fool if I expected to nail The Legato techniques soon.
A change is better than a rest. Maybe take a week away from Dee and try something less technically demanding. something you can make progress on quickly, then come back to Dee.
Even Randy Rhoads had a hard time getting it down and he’s a trained Classical guitarist and one of Rocks best.
You will get it and all your hard work will pay off.
@stitch had a good idea, take a breath and play something compleatly different. I have my electric on open C tuning and learning Queens of the Stone age very heavy but has harmonics.
Or drink vino That works too.
I am going to work on turning my palm toward my body also to help with that finger lift.
I did well! I did a whole 5 minutes with the metronome repeating bar 22 landing on the open D, holding it for 3 beats and restarting again the sequence over and over. Wow!
well…you know what?
I need to practice some more now.
…but it seems to flow a bit better. It’ll be worth to practice bar 22 at 65bpm on its own next time, to build more confidence.
my hand hurts every time I play this thing. Its worth it, classicals sound so nice.
Whoot whoot.
That works too.
